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CHAMPIONS UNIVERSE: What Do *You* Want To See?
Archived Post
Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
Hey folx!
As some of you may already know, I'm currently writing Champions Universe. CU is our comprehensive guide to the amazing Champions Universe. Naturally, we want to make this book appealing not only to players of the PnP RPG, but to fans of the MMO who'd like to learn more about the background, history, events, places, and characters of the setting.
Here's what we're currently planning to put in the book, which will be a hardover, full-color product:
Chapter One: history, from the earliest days up to 2010 (though obviously the majority of the text is devoted to the 1938-2010 period).
Chapter Two: a short one discussing the definition of "superhuman" for this setting.
Chapter Three: Superhumans And Society -- how they interact with the government, the media, technology, various subcultures (Business World, Martial World, Scientific World...).
Chapter Four: The CU Multiverse -- superhumans around the world; Millennium City; Vibora Bay; the various Hidden Lands; outer space and alien life; other dimensions.
Chapter Five: A brief but helpful review of the major players in the CU -- the main villains, the major organizations, the most prominent NPC heroes, et cetera.
Chapter Six: GMing; also includes the "GM's Vault" wherein we put the *real* information that's not revealed in Chapters 1-5 (thus in theory allowing players to read the book without spoiling plots or giving away setting secrets).
The one thing that you won't find a lot of in the book is character sheets for villains. The major villains are definitely discussed and described, but for meaty stuff like character sheets and full backgrounds you'll have to refer to Champions Villains, a three-volume set of books I'll be writing this spring for publication this summer.
So, keeping all this in mind -- what would you like to see in the CU book? What would make you more (or less) likely to purchase it?
Thanx!
As some of you may already know, I'm currently writing Champions Universe. CU is our comprehensive guide to the amazing Champions Universe. Naturally, we want to make this book appealing not only to players of the PnP RPG, but to fans of the MMO who'd like to learn more about the background, history, events, places, and characters of the setting.
Here's what we're currently planning to put in the book, which will be a hardover, full-color product:
Chapter One: history, from the earliest days up to 2010 (though obviously the majority of the text is devoted to the 1938-2010 period).
Chapter Two: a short one discussing the definition of "superhuman" for this setting.
Chapter Three: Superhumans And Society -- how they interact with the government, the media, technology, various subcultures (Business World, Martial World, Scientific World...).
Chapter Four: The CU Multiverse -- superhumans around the world; Millennium City; Vibora Bay; the various Hidden Lands; outer space and alien life; other dimensions.
Chapter Five: A brief but helpful review of the major players in the CU -- the main villains, the major organizations, the most prominent NPC heroes, et cetera.
Chapter Six: GMing; also includes the "GM's Vault" wherein we put the *real* information that's not revealed in Chapters 1-5 (thus in theory allowing players to read the book without spoiling plots or giving away setting secrets).
The one thing that you won't find a lot of in the book is character sheets for villains. The major villains are definitely discussed and described, but for meaty stuff like character sheets and full backgrounds you'll have to refer to Champions Villains, a three-volume set of books I'll be writing this spring for publication this summer.
So, keeping all this in mind -- what would you like to see in the CU book? What would make you more (or less) likely to purchase it?
Thanx!
Post edited by Archived Post on
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In particular, history of huge events like the battle of detroit, taco fiend, the fallen heroes (and their powers in detail!) would be awesome.
Someone mentioned a map, that would be awesome. An included poster-size map.
MARKETING IDEA: Work with CO to hold a contest and have the winner's backstory written into the lore in some manner.
Case in point, Guild Wars has a area in a desert with massive giant statues in the distance. In the lore, they were built by people long dead to become closer to the gods. The really quarky thing is that while you are miles away they are standing up right and pristine; however when you finally get close to them (they are miles out when you see them) they are ruins.
For every page of information in the book, there should be a side bar including tons of little plot seeds, for mini, medium, and major adventure hooks.
Base them on locations, NPCs, important historical events, possible future ones, anything, but please, give me tons of creative ideas on how to incorporate stuff into sessions, even if the ideas are threadbare.
As an example;
Millenium City's mayor is Calvin Bisselle {and a long detialed bit about the man, his politics, and his work in the main paragraph}
[Sidebar] Mayor Biselle is a widower, is Daughter Brianna attends Ravenswood Academy but is not a known paranormal, nor is she aware of Homeroom Alpha. It's possible she might have Psionic ability, however, and Psi could come knocking from their Mind, Inc. cover!
Obviously, I took this one right out of Champions Online, but this is the sort of info I as a tabletop GM love to get. I can use it, tweak it, ignore it, or change it as I will. [Maybe Brianna is instead mystically gifted and DEMON comes looking?]
I also like it when these books have a lot of little short stories in them. One of my favorite things about the Warcraft PnP books is the little stories that are really well written and do an excelent job of settingthe mood for the world. Which is something of a problem I have with Champions. It's heroes so integrated into so society that it's a society I can't really connect with because I have no anchor or referance to it. I just have no concept of ronald McDonald out there saving orphans from a burning bus like a spokes person from the champions world would. So little stories that aren't necessarily raw history or a twitter tale of a man's drive to work would be great.
I have done the mapquest.com or googlemaps.com satellite view and laid a hex grid over it in Photoshop for reference, I've used the online searches for location maps of offices, warehouses, amusement parks, etc etc and done the same. But you never really are prepared for the player who thinks outside the box.
Example: I had a chase scene running through downtown Houston TX in one game that was pretty heated, up until one player took it off grid. He headed into the Houston underground tunnel system, something I had completely forgotten about. This wouldn't have been too much an issue, except he seemed to know a lot about it I didn't. The climatic battle I had planned in the skies over Houston... turned into a climatic attempt to save hundreds of thousands of lives from the paranormal slug-fest twenty feet below the nations fourth largest city! Yes it was fun, yes it turned out great, but it could have been better if I had been better prepared.
Whats the material strength of twenty feet of re-enforced concrete and steel, whats the weight of your basic sky scraper? The physics major among my group has made it clear that when Williams Tower is the victim of large explosions, the one flying superhero close enough to catch it, would be unable to hold the falling building from toppling over onto the Houston Galleria.
Don't get me wrong, I understand the break between reality and this fantasy game, and I know that as the GM, I have the power to end said argument with the simple phrase, "Because I, your all powerful and all knowing GM, said so that's why!" Still it was Louis Pasteur who said, "Fortune favors the prepared mind." Actually he said, "In the fields of observation chance favors only the prepared mind." but the paraphrase is also well known.
Anyway, you get the point. More detailed material strengths, more maps of interesting locations, more quick reference charts, and maybe even a new and better GM screen built with all these things included.
I should probably add here that I have not seen the new book for sixth edition as many of my friends and I are waiting to hear a few un-biased reviews prior to trying to change over our system to the new one.
This is a book for the paper-and-pencil Champions game. Steve has no influence on the costume piece drops in the online game.... hmm, wait a minute, where did Harbinger get that spiffy new wardrobe?
I roleplay a Gadroon rebel, so information like this would be extremely helpful to me.
Thanks
Will you choose major CO players too? It would be cool to select popular CO players with nice outfits and background to be inmortilized in the book.
Not easy work but it may be possible to check the more ranked heroes and from them choose 1 or 2 with a good background.
Will it be sold outside USA too?
We don't have any plans for the CU book to cover MMO PCs created by players -- but that's a great idea for a contest! The next time we have a book coming up where we could showcase some NPC heroes I'll talk to Cryptic and see if we can't work something out.
(Caveat: Some of *my* PCs in the game have been around in the PnP world for awhile, usually because they were once PCs of mine in a PnP game campaign. So if you see one running around, it's not a contest, it might be me!
All of our books are sold outside of the US, primarily in England, Europe, and Australia. If you can't find it at your regular gaming store, our Online Store ships anywhere in the world for a minimal shipping fee. We have several regular customers in the UK, Italy, and Israel, just to name a few.
I'd also like more info regarding Istvatha V'han and her D-Soldiers.
And boy oh boy do I have some ideas for Champions Beyond!
Also, some character profiles with personality developing stuff, not just like "height," "born in," "likes donuts" but sense of humor, life changing events, reactions to other personalities, defining characteristics, fond memories, personal interactions, etc.
Also something for the factions, relating to the world, how they see competitors/allies, the general zeitgeist of the movement between "eh, its a paycheck" vs "FOR THE HORDE!!" the attitudes of the establishment vs the participants vs the community.
Everyone in the Champions world is so blase' about everything there's no emmotion or feel. I get that there have been hero's flying around and blowing stuff up for nearly a century, but is all the majesty really gone? And if so, is complete disregard and apathy *** mild amusement what replaced it? Even the villains give the feel of the hero's winning so darn often that it's expected that they'll lose and the whole Destroyer nuking Detroit thing was more fluke than well crafted plan and malevolence.
Also, Bewbies.
-Pi
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wow, I'm a pervert and I totally missed how *** would be censored lol "what the hell....oooooooh. Duh."
Ima leave it tho, cuz it amuses me.
The book is already out so I don't think they will be adding that stuff.:D
Wow, Necrothread, didn't notice. Volume 2?
-Pi